Google revealed their first efforts in becoming a high-profile telecommunications company, as they arrived in Kansas City to launch their new ‘ultra-high speed’ Google Fibre service, and now they are adding more cities.

The ‘Fibre’ package is one which enables users to subscribe to ‘Internet and television services’ as of next month (with the start of the ‘installation’ process) and have made an astonishing connection speed-based promise of being able to go ‘100 times faster’ than more traditional broadband powerhouses around the world.

The service (which will focus mainly on a $120-per-month ‘set’ of internet (1gb/s), a connected TV package (with over 100 supported networks), and cloud storage (1tb) ) will be launched exclusively to the Kansas City market upon initial release as more of a ‘trial version’.

And the area covered has now increased other areas including Westwood, Westwood Hills and Mission Woods joining Kansas City.

However, that roll-out is likely to be the start of a key new product for the internet search engine specialists, as the company’s chief financial officer Patrick Pichette said of the development of Fiber (and of the lack of a phone service being included): “Access is the next frontier that needs to be opened. We’re going to do it profitably. That is our plan. We are at a crossroad. We at Google we believe there is no need to wait. The phone is really a 1940s thing. Why have a landline? It’s sitting there, you use it once every two weeks.”

Video services set to be accessible on TV through the ‘ultra high-speed’ connections will include regular channels (and their online catch-up services) alongside big-name online services such as Netflix, YouTube, Starz (premium content), and content from media powerhouses such as Discovery Networks, Time Warner (CNN, TNT and TBS), and Walt Disney Co. (Disney and ESPN), with plans to add more names to the list as the Fiber service grows.

Meanwhile, the full service will also include the ability to record a maximum of 8 TV shows at once, and store around 500 hours of HD programming, with TV control also enabled through tablets or smartphones (most notably the Google Nexus 7).

Google have revealed their plans to also include an ‘Internet-only’ offering at a rate of $70 a month with no setback to the ambitious 1 gigabyte-per second selling point, while Google are also set to charge customers an initial $300 ‘installation fee’ regardless of their package, claiming that buyers can chalk it up as a ‘home improvement’ cost.

In addition, the company are planning to tie their Fiber product into a new initiative called ‘fibrehoods’, where a group of over 50 registered people (paying a $10 registration fee) in the same ‘neighbourhood’ will be able to receive a local area installation, presumably offering a more reliable service to those users in close proximity to a ‘fiber community’.

Macqarie Research analyst Ben Schachter summarised the service’s planned launch, stating: “They need to be able to offer something that is everything people have now and more. People are going to have high expectations for this. The worst thing they can do is come out and disappoint.”

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[…] Google are also in the headlines this week for their launch of the ‘Google Fiber’ broadband service in the Kansas City (USA) metropolitan area, with the experimental ultra-high-speed structure being […]